After a week hiatus from social media, I am back. Apologies about the bout of absence, illness and work took me away. So, if you emailed me within the last two weeks, I promise I will get back to you; I’m just slightly overwhelmed at this point.

Updates from the hepatitis B front: SF Treasure Island Dragon Boat Festival was this past weekend, which is always a treat. We had the opportunity to collaborate with SF Hep B Free on holding a booth and providing educational surveys to the festival attendees. Knowledge levels about hepatitis B prevalence in Asian and Pacific Islanders (1 in 10 compared to 1 in 1000 of Caucasians), transmission (only through blood), and risks (liver cancer and liver failure) were very low, indicative of increased awareness and education. Surveys from the Filipino Fil Am Friendship Festival in Daly City also reflected poor knowledge levels and misconceptions within the Filipino population. NT, SC, and I are working on a paper that examines the knowledge levels of the Chinese, Vietnamese, and Filipino populations, so that should be exciting. Side note: everyone loved the Jade Warrior tattoos – I’ll upload one tomorrow. They were such a hit.

On the youth front, the 2009-2010 Jade Ribbon Youth Council has been selected. 16 Bay Area high school students will be joining the ALC family to create innovative outreach ideas for targeting youth and learn how to be leaders in their communities. The application was pretty stiff this year and it was difficult to choose out of roughly fifty highly qualified candidates. Additionally, it is extremely exciting to see all the high school awareness chapters that are starting this year. I think there are ten or more chapters that are starting from this year’s YLC alone. And I also received an email from a YLC 2008 alumni at Vassar who is going to start a collegiate hepatitis B awareness group. This is just one example of how these youth empowerment programs truly impact youth and stay with them. I’m very thankful I had the opportunity to play a role in such an rewarding endeavor.

And one more piece of exciting news: the ALC’s new Outreach Coordinator will be starting on Wednesday! I can now officially start full force on the corporate outreach work. Exciting!

I also saw a mother carrying the Jade Ribbon Campaign reusable shopping bag at the Caltrain Station at Milbrae this past Saturday. I almost took out the camera to snap pictures of her, but stopped myself less I appear inappropriate. However, CL did come up with a neat idea: “Where have you seen the JRC reusable shopping bag” contest. Definitely has merit and will continue ruminating on this idea for the future.

September has been an incredible whirlwind of hepatitis B outreach activities. I’ve been out at events every weekend this month. Finished with another Vietnamese screening (we held one in partnership with the Vietnamese Reach for Health Coalition last weekend, which was very successful!) today. This one was held at a Vietnamese church, and it ran smoothly despite less than expected numbers attending. However, UP did a good job setting this up and gaining the church’s buy-in, so I’m proud of her work for this summer.

In retrospect, I believe that in order for our outreach projects to be more successful, we’ll need to return to the partnered education and screenings instead of trying to squeeze ourselves into the Sunday church schedule. Unless we have the entire church’s buy-in, it is difficult to incorporate our education and screening program.

I just heard of two new high school hepatitis B awareness groups that will be forming from students who attended our Youth Leadership Conference in August. It makes me really excited to hear that we are able to inspire these young leaders to take action in their communities.

Social Media FunI have been fiddling with various social media tools / widgets this past week. One of my particular favorites is the introduction of TimesPeople on NYTimes.com where I can directly tweet, facebook, digg, etc. articles that I find intriguing. Plus, I can also recommend articles, and these articles will show up on my TimesPeople profile where those who follow me can read about my suggestions. I think this is a fantastic move for NYTimes to make the news (especially their news articles) much more accessible to others through peer dissemination. You can find me under the handle missamyyu if you ever decide to you use it.

Posterous has also been a newly acquired social media toy that I’m learning how to use. So bear with me as I test out various posterous features.

Had a fun time teaching BC about Twitter, and had a hilarious exchange about retweeting, and how retweeting only applies to those who are alive. [Note, he’s an author, so that is how we got to talking about retweeting dead individuals like Ernest Hemingway.]

Of InterestTried my hand at mashed cauliflower (the healthier alternative to mashed potatoes) the other day. Tasted pretty good despite my overuse of butter.

Brief update on youth action to eradicate hepatitis B. Been a little swampped at work with various projects and trying to finish up secondary applications for medical school.

Youth Hepatitis B Awareness GroupsWe have roughly 6 or 7 new high school hepatitis B awareness chapters this year from students who attended the 7th Annual Youth Leadership Conference on Asian and Pacific Islander Health. The students who are creating these groups are all fantastic and are just so incredibly enthusiastic to raise awareness about hepatitis B and liver cancer in their communities. The chapters range from Northern California to Southern California to Georgia and to New York. There might also be one in Texas soon. I’m really impressed by all the students’ effort and willingness to improve the health of their communities; I wish I had that drive when I was younger. I’m really looking forward to seeing their groups grow and am trying to think of ways to make sure that these students are recognized for their leadership. This is just a testament to the efficacy of empowering youth to address a health disparity, and how our youth leadership conference is a model program. Youth are so innovative and enthusiastic, and by teaching them the skills to enact their own outreach projects, they can do real good in their communities.

Also reading Jade Ribbon Youth Council applications. I’m a bit behind because I was pushing a grant through and preparing things for my next potential corporate partner – which will be very exciting. More details later.

And good news, our new Outreach Coordinator will be officially starting on September 30th, and I will be transitioning full time to Corporate Outreach and Advocacy. And while I’m looking forward to my new position,where there is great opportunity for innovation and leadership development, I will have to admit that I am going to miss working on the ALC’s outreach programming at large. After spending a year building relationships in the ethnic communities and working to make our youth programming exciting and sustainable, I am relunctant to leave that arena. I will really miss working with the interns and the high school students – it is really all about the people at the end. However, the new Outreach Coordinator DN will be a fantastic addition to our team and will bear the Outreach Coordinator mantle well. Plus, there are new and exciting things ahead!

Wal-Mart in Fremont, CA donated $1,000 to the Jade Ribbon Campaign (specifically, LIVERight). Thanks to SW for applying for this community grant and thank you to Wal-Mart for their generous contribution to supporting liver cancer and hepatitis B awareness. When I went to accept the check, I had the opportunity to chat with a fantastic Filipina lady by the name of C. She was pretty remarkable in that she worked two jobs, seven days a week and survived the death of her youngest son to liver cancer. Hopefully we can work with her in some capacity on some Filipino hepatitis B outreach.

Jade Ribbon Campaign and the Fight against Hepatitis B This week was the last week for our summer interns (how sad!), and we’ll be hiring the new team in late September. I’ve seen three teams of interns during my time at the Asian Liver Center, and I’m always sad when they leave. It’s been such a pleasure watching this team grow and learn new skills and gain confidence in their communication or team building techniques. And, in turn, they also teach me a few lessons about how to be a better leader, how to communicate in a more direct and positive manner, and how to manage projects so that they feel an investment, and I can make sure that projects move forward. Of course, I’m still learning, but I am indebted to the past three teams of interns for their great work and their inspriration.

Speaking of inspiration, I met with a trio from Saratoga High this week to discuss their ideas for a Jade Ribbon Campaign awareness club at their school. It is really heartening to hear their enthusiasm and drive to create a club that makes a difference in their community. The meeting was productive in that we identified potential projects they could undertake during the year and ideas for their weekly meetings so that the meetings are geared more toward education and not only volunteer opportunities. We’re beginning to get a lot more high school clubs with each subsequent YLC, and they are all excited about coordinating efforts nationwide as well – letter writing campaigns, and a coordinated Hepatitis B Awareness Week.

I’ve been working with SC to create some sticker and box designs for Sheng Kee Bakery to raise more awareness about the Jade Ribbon Campaign – so that has been very fun. I will post some of the designs up when they’re at a more finalized state. If you have any ideas, feel free to message me!

And in line with pastries, this is a picture of me at the Miss Asian America pageant with Sugar Bowl Bakery CEO and his wife (who are both so incredibly nice!) pinning them with the Jade Ribbon! Thank you again to Miss Asian America for their support of the Jade Ribbon Campaign. Furthermore, there’s the Jade Ribbon dress ST made! That was a pretty exciting night, although I was fairly exhausted since it was right after the last day of Youth Leadership Conference.

Multitasking – a Detriment to our Cognitive Abilities?

I was listening to NPR yesterday, and currently, a study by Professor Clifford Nass is all the rage because it indicates that individuals who engage in multimedia multitasking are often bad at it, AND, they pay a mental price for it. From the study, it appears that those who multitask at high rate have difficulty in differentiating between relevant and irrelevant information; hence, multitasking on a media level (e.g. chatting via IM while writing an email, watching the television, and reading a NYtimes article) can have a detrimental impact on our cognitive abilities. Makes me consider if I should be multitasking (of course, it’s so ingrained into how I operate, that I’m undergain how I can stop). Here’s the article from NPR, and a transcript of an interview with Professor Nass.

Overview: ALC website update, YLC section overhaul, delicious Indian Food, Twitter things, and weekend highlights! I can’t believe it is already Friday. As EN said in a tweet, this was the fastest week ever. I’m looking forward to this weekend to have the opportunity to hammer out some more application things and for my picnic adventure. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy.

Asian Liver Center / Jade Ribbon Campaign UpdatesFinished updating portions of the ALC website with pictures and some videos. I’ve drawn satisfaction from the redesign of the Youth Leadership Conference portion of the website where it’s less text heavy, and more picture-heavy (although it can still be argued that there still is too much text). It’s not completely done, but it will be soon after TC gets the team presentations uploaded onto our YouTube account. He’s been working hard on them (editing and everything), so hopefully the students will enjoy them. I’ve also updated with the 99 Ranch Market JRC reusable bag photos on our Flickr account as well. Staring at the computer screen coding brings back fun memories of coding late into the night when html was still the new kid on the block. Of course, this constant staring has also dried my eyes out (oi!).

I created a Jade Ribbon Campaign “twibbon” for those who use Twitter and would like to join the Jade Ribbon Campaign. Basically it puts up a little icon on your Twitter icon indicating you support the cause. There are a lot of various twibbons out there, so you can definitely explore. Regardless of the social media platform, customization is always in style. You can find the JRC twibbon here. This is an example:

Going to help TC with a Korean Church education and screening this Sunday – that shall be fun! Excitement for educating people.

Personal Commentary

Went out to fantastic Indian food last night at Amber India Restaurant in Mountain View with CT. The food was delicious and the service was excellent. I definitely reccommend it to anyone who enjoys good food. I hope to return soon.

I’ve found that most of my news now consists of what I read in Twitter feeds. It initially struck me as a bit odd considering that I used to get my news from browsing the NYTimes.com website (not that I don’t anymore, but with less frequency), but after a bit of thought it didn’t. As we’re continuing to use social media to let our friends know of various news items we find important, these platforms become dynamic news sources instead of stagnant ones. Now, I don’t have to go in search of news – it comes to me. And, I can choose what things come to me through the people I follow. Maybe I should begin following Kristof and Dowd so I at least get my daily dose of NYtimes.

I’ll be going on my picnic tomorrow with CT. We’ll be headed out to Safeway to purchase the goods tonight, so I’m looking forward to that. I’ll let you know how the picnic goes.

Personal Commentary

Went out to fantastic Indian food last night at Amber India Restaurant in Mountain View with CT. The food was delicious and the service was excellent. I definitely reccommend it to anyone who enjoys good food. I hope to return soon.

I’ve found that most of my news now consists of what I read in Twitter feeds. It initially struck me as a bit odd considering that I used to get my news from browsing the NYTimes.com website (not that I don’t anymore, but with less frequency), but after a bit of thought it didn’t. As we’re continuing to use social media to let our friends know of various news items we find important, these platforms become dynamic news sources instead of stagnant ones. Now, I don’t have to go in search of news – it comes to me. And, I can choose what things come to me through the people I follow. Maybe I should begin following Kristof and Dowd so I at least get my daily dose of NYtimes.

I’ll be going on my picnic tomorrow with CT. We’ll be headed out to Safeway to purchase the goods tonight, so I’m looking forward to that. I’ll let you know how the picnic goes.

Jade Ribbon Campaign news and social media fun are all on today’s agenda. Hope you’re doing well, and thank goodness the week is almost over (although, I’m not sure if I really like that considering the need to write secondaries).

Asian Liver Center / Jade Ribbon Campaign UpdateFinally got around to uploading the online Jade Ribbon Youth Council 2009-2010 application onto the Asian Liver Center website. I’m excited for what this year’s 15-person high school council will come up with to raise awareness about hepatitis B.

Finally post-processed the Youth Leadership Conference 2009 photos today. Had the opportunity to teach TC, AC, and CL a little post-processing in Photoshop – I always like to get people Photoshop savvy! Thx to TC and AC for helping me with the last set of photos. And, TC has been a great help in uploading the team videos. I’m looking to upload all those on the ALC website tomorrow.

Also, been talking with SC about nominating HepBMoms (part of the perinatal hepatitis B project SC and CC have been working on) for the Intel “Vote for a Cause” contest on Facebook. The grand prize will be marketing with Intel – how exciting would that be? Working on that – hopefully you’ll help out with the voting!

Social Media FunI’m not sure when I got into the whole social media thing (some time last year when I was drafting up what YLC 2009 should look like), but it sure is exciting. It has been really great to meet all these incredibly talented and insightful people who are on the cutting edge of social media (e.g. Beth Kanter & Michael Brito to name a few) – and are so nice!

Today, CL and I attended a social media discussion hosted by Richard “Frosty” Welch from HP that included a guest panel of Michael Brito (Intel), Angela LoSasso (HP), Steve Rubel (Edelman Digital), and Richard Brewer-Hay (Ebay). Great comments about social media theory and practice that can adapted for non-profit work. CL and I had questions about how to leverage social media to raising awareness to a public that isn’t already talking about hepatitis B, and Michael and Steve had some great feedback. Michael even offered to sit down and speak with us about strategy!

Note for self: need to look into Posterous, Friendfeed, and continue to dig around Social Mention

Of Personal InterestWriting an email to the Stanford Alumni San Francisco group about my dismay with their endorsement of GenerationRescue and the group’s claim that vaccines cause autism and misinforming folks. So much for doing due diligence and slapping the Stanford name onto irresponsible, media-friendly celebrities. Here’s a science based resource to such misinformed assertions. Join me if you think this is wrong, too.

Considering investing in an iPhone or a PalmPre. Also, heard from a good friend KK – this made me very happy and somewhat nostalgic for the days when we walked to and from Roble to Mudd.

Currently relaxing in my hotel room at the Omni Hotel in Atlanta (Hot-lanta as it’s often endearingly called) taking care of some emails and about to begin working on secondaries again. Just finished a morning of a poster presentation on Youth Leadership Conference – many people were interested in replicating the program for other ethnic groups, and were impressed with the workshops and skills we offer our students. Hopefully, they can utilize our stuff (workshop slides, format, etc) to create other youth programs for teenagers across the nation! I even ran out of handouts for my poster!

AG finished a great (and very fast) presentation on the Jade Ribbon Campaign in a panel presentation. I really liked SC’s suggestion about presenting the Jade Ribbon Campaign via the gaps that were identified concerning hepatitis B awareness and education. The panel itself was really enjoyable, and one common theme that ran across all the presentations is the necessity of making sure that the community is highly involved in any health initiative that is going to be done successfully. Partnering is so incredibly important to make anything truly effective and impactful. The point of my job isn’t to just educate and stand on my soap box, it’s to engage and initiate behavior change. I hope I carry this lesson into my career as a physician (::has fingers crossed::).

Also watched an interesting bit of news on CNN last night: there was a poll of North Carolina’s residents that weren’t sure if Obama was born in the United States. I was rather flabbergasted because I would hope that most Americans would know that in order to be President of the United States of America, you need to have been born in the US. I hate to make stereotypes, but I wonder if the reason for the “confusion” is resultant of Obama’s race and his father’s ties to Islam (correct me if I’m wrong). It was both humorous and frustrating at the same time, and the fact that I’m still thinking about it indicates that something about it just rubs me the wrong way. What do you think?

I haven’t been keeping abreast of the healthcare reform situation; however, I certainly saw many explosive town hall meetings being covered last night. Now that YLC is over and other things are quieting down (well, when do things at the ALC ever quiet down?), I can get back on track with my news. I found a little primer on NYtimes that may be useful for those of you who are equally confused by the coverage. For those of you who are well-versed, drop me a line to let me know if the primer is any good or if you’d like to share your opinions. I’m not certain if I’m for or against the new plan, but I’m certan things need to change. Too bad that doesn’t translate into having a good solution.

And here’s a little piece for all you procrastinators out there about a fast clock for your menu bar from Guy Kawasaki. Haha.

To end, here is something cute to look at for your enjoyment. Check out the juice boxes and hamburger, too. Thanks to SL for that link!

Currently taking a break in the Omni Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia (Shout out to LC!). I am currently attending the CDC’s 3rd Annual National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing and Media. AG is presenting on the Jade Ribbon Campaign, and I have a poster presentation on Youth Leadership Conference. Speaking of Youth Leadership Conference – it was FANTASTIC!! I had hoped to do daily updates about the exciting things that went on, but alas, each day was full of the many to-do’s and running around. The students were really great this year, and I was very much impressed with their work on Team Challenges. The speakers for the conference were also brilliant and super inspiring. When I get back to the office and am able to pull pictures from the server, I’ll update with brief intros about them and their talks.

I took away quite a bit of things from the conference this year. One, is that high school students don’t use Twitter. I didn’t know that! They claim that it is “stalkerish,” something “old people use,” and it’s useless. They much rather prefer the Facebook platform since all they really want to know is what their friends are doing. How interesting! In fact, you can read about it on Beth Kanter’s blog. I’m so jazzed that we were highlighted on her blog! Beth Kanter is one of the leading women in social media technology, so it is an incredible honor to be on her website. There are even pictures of the students, CL, and me on her Flickr!

I am really indebted to CL for finding Beth’s blog and to BE for making the connection – who knew the world was so small! I really hope the YLC students take away at least something from her presentation. I have to admit here that this conference’s theme Web 2.0 was in part, a personal interest that I wanted to expand, and I hope that the students, although perhaps not exactly creators quite yet (well, beyond creating just for their friends), will be able to take what they learned and utilize it in the years to come!

The students came up with some very innovative ideas for social media projects to advance hepatitis B and liver cancer awareness, and I’m looking forward to actually incorporating a lot of their ideas. This year, many of the ideas are definitely scalable and usable, and I can’t wait to get back in the office to think how to incorporate them into the ALC’s social media / communication plan. We’ll be posting up their final presentations on the ALC website soon, so make sure to check it out (I’ll let you all know when it’s up).

The Youth Leadership Conference on Asian and Pacific Islander Health is a conference designed to provide high school students from across the nation with the tools and skills to effect change in their communities and to inspire them to take leadership roles; however, I feel that YLC isn’t just a growing experience just for the students – it is a growing experience for the interns, the Jade Ribbon Youth Council, and especially for me. I sincerely hope that the Team Leaders (ALC interns) and Assistant Team Leaders (JRYC) had a great time with the conference, and came away with an experience that helped them grow into being more confident leaders. It’s a very different experience learning to guide a team of high school students and trying to inspire morale and expand their minds. This year, for feedback, I’m really interested in not just what the YLC participants have to say in how we can improve the conference, I really want to hear what our interns and JRYC have to say.

One thing that I learned this conference (among the many things from all the speakers!) comes from an incident that occured during our late-night YLC staff meeting. This was Thursday evening – the end of the second day of the conference, and everyone was very tired and rather un-energized. Not to go into details (you can ask me if you wish. And big props to RN for talking it through with me that night), but what I learned from this experience was that as a leader, I need to really make sure I open up communication between those I’m working with so that they can let me know if anything is going wrong or if they are frustrated about my management. This year, I put a lot more trust in my interns to run YLC on their own (much more than I did last year since I was green to the whole management thing and to YLC), but that may have put more stress on them and I probably didn’t offer enough guidance. So, I’m really looking forward to their feedback this year (I made a list of 30 odd questions for them, so I’m hoping I get some constructive responses). Leadership is all about communication, and a good leader is able to promote and maintain open dialogue between the people who work with him/her. Michael Chen put it eloquently: in order for a boat to get somewhere, everyone needs to be paddling together, both the leader and the team, in a synergistic manner. And for that to happen, open communication needs to be established and cultivated.

But how do you critique something to your direct supervisor? I will be the first to admit that I haven’t had the most positive thoughts about every project that I do or think the best of the way a boss manages things, but looking back, I should have said something, even if my supervisor didn’t extend that hand. If I’m frustrated and I don’t tell my boss, then he/she won’t know, and we can’t work together to find an agreeable solution. I think it’s the responsibility of both parties to reach out to each other. Dialogue only works when both parties are involved.

I know that a lot of my interns often doubt certain aspects of our various projects (and I’m glad they do, because it shows that they are thinking about them!), but feel uncomfortable saying it directly to me. So, I’m glad they have other staff to speak to about those uncertainties. I want to be there for them, but I am probably not the best person to talk to, especially since I’m their outreach coordinator. I am also glad that during YLC, AG, CC, SC, and MB were able to bring the interns snacks, gatorade, and send encouraging text messages to keep morale high. It’s hard to listen to one person (aka me) yap about what needs to be done and still keep a smile on your face. I’m realizing more and more, the way that you hold yourself, your facial expressions, etc. all make a huge impact on how the rest of your team acts and responds.

Alright, enough ruminations from me. Thanks for reading – if you got through all that (and even if you didn’t thanks for reading the portions that you read). Time to go to another workshop on how to evaluate web 2.0 efforts.

Also, welcome to Club 23, DT. It was good speaking with you over the phone yesterday.

The ALC staff and interns have been busily preparing for the Jade Ribbon reusable bag launch at 99 Ranch Market (Cupertino) tomorrow! That’s one reason why I have been a little MIA in terms of posting on this blog; however, expect a lot of updates from me soon! But back to the Jade Ribbon bag: This environmentally-friendly bag is a great way to raise awareness about liver cancer and hepatitis B and build a sustainable community. The eco-friendly reusable shopping bag, along with hep B educational materials, will be available with every donation of $2 or more to the Jade Ribbon Campaign. Visit the ALC’s website (http://liver.stanford.edu) for more info!

The Jade Ribbon Campaign reusable bag will be at all ten Northern California 99 Ranch Market Stores. If you are in SoCal or Washington and want one, let me know and I’ll see if 99 Ranch Market will bring them over there!

Notables: First 100 people to spend $50 in groceries at 99 Ranch Market Cupertino will get a FREE bag! Come get your picture taken with Miss Asian America!

– Show your support!
Put this image in your EV or FB (wherever you want!) to show your support of tomorrow’s event! 🙂

Use this to show your support! 🙂

This project means a lot to me because SC and I have been working really hard on this for over 8 months now, and it’s really exciting to see this all come to fruition. I still remember when one of my interns EY was still calling for reusable bag quotes – and that was before she went to Oxford for a quarter to study abroad! I don’t know how to express how very excited I am – there are just so many stakeholders in this project and to see the community come together tomorrow will be incredibly rewarding. Miss Asian America and Miss Vietnam Northern California Princesses will be out in addition to our fantastic Jade Ribbon Campaign volunteers and supporters. I’ll see some of my old interns and old friends, and it’s just super heartwarming. I’m really glad that I’ve decided to stay on with the ALC for a second year to work because it’s only after a year that I’ve been able to see many of the fruits of my work. Plus, I’ll get to continue to build the relationships that I’ve built over the past year, and once we hire the new Outreach Coordinator, I can work full time on all these exciting corporate ventures. Cisco has really taken a lead on their own, and I really need to get back on track with our hep B corporate working team! Another thing I’m excited is about all the ethnic media coverage that has been made, and all the press that will be at the event tomorrow! World Journal, Sing Tao, Viet Tribune, Korea Times, and Vietnam Daily have just be absolutely fantastic supporters.

The momentum for all this is so energizing, and I hope this momentum will spur people into action to get screened and vaccinated. The bag’s are not only super practical (I can fit all those vegetables and my wafer crackers in these bags), they’re so great at really getting the Jade Ribbon message out.

Alright, now that I’ve finished revamping the ALC main page with a graphic about the event tomorrow, I need to go print the A-frame signs at Kinkos!

And a big thanks to SC and all my FANTASTIC summer 2009 ALC interns. TC is actually still here with me at the office preparing all the photo stuff and all the interns have been instrumental in either creating the banner, packing, creating the press packets, the buttons, coordinating volunteers, and all the incredible things that they do. THANK YOU so much. This really couldn’t have been done without your help!

More updates soon with social marketing workshop in SF, Myer-Briggs personality tests, the love of egg tarts and dim sum!, AND the Jade Ribbon dresses that ST is making me!

Two posts today to make up for the lack of updates yesterday! I’m currently in my Web 2.0 class learning about wikis and the next topic is about a social media tool called brickfish. Today’s class is not as applicable as other classes, but it is still nice to learn about these various platforms.

My to-do list just keeps on growing and growing, and I feel that the amount of “have-dones” just aren’t keeping up. Post-notes make up a colorful melee of now illegible text all over my desk and monitor and my excel to-do list glares more reds (not done) than greens (finished). Youth Leadership Conference is in 16 days and there is still SO much to do! I just need more time to work on the handbook with CL. Really – where does the time go? However, the 99 Ranch Market / Jade Ribbon reusable bag are clearly on first priority this week. There is so much work involved with contacting media, developing the programming, and being patient and persistent. I am very grateful for the interest and support that the ethnic media has shown, and I look forward to seeing them out in Cupertino on Friday. One cool note, we’re in the Korea Times: http://sf.koreatimes.com/article/537062

I’ll be heading to Google San Bruno tomorrow as the ALC’s third venture to increase awareness about hepatitis B and liver cancer in their employee network. It’s the YouTube site, so I’m excited to see what the demographics that are there.

Learned today that TT got engaged, so that was super exciting! Congratulations to her and her fiancé! TT has been a strong supporter and advocate for hep B and liver cancer in the Bay Area Vietnamese community, and I’m happy for this next stage in her life.

Had lunch today with GH and EN at the Clark Center. It was great being able to steal away from work for a moment in the day to reminisce about college years and friendships. One particularly notable happenstance was when we all got different dishes and immediately began to portion them into thirds so we could all share. How I love friends, especially those who are like-minded! It was good seeing GH; her contagious enthusiasm and energy always brightens my day. And I learned the EN was also accepted into the Berkeley post-bacc program! Congratulations to him! 🙂 This piece of knowledge, apparently old news, reminds me that I need to redouble my efforts to connect with my good friends. I admit, that I have dropped off the face of the earth due to work and applications. Sorry about that! RN and I were briefly discussing the difficulty with balancing life and work, especially for workaholics like us. If anyone has any suggestions on how to do this, do let me know.

And to end today’s post, I do have some sobering, but important news: today at noon Commander Bok Pon died due to liver cancer induced by hepatitis B. He was a very big figure in the SF Chinese community, and many people will miss him. This is just another reminder that hepatitis B is still a very real and very deadly disease. In fact, every 30 seconds, someone dies of liver failure / liver cancer caused by hep B, and I strongly believe that by outreaching and educating our friends and family (even if it’s just talking to one person), we can prevent such needless suffering.